The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1887-10-08
Schools Took Up,

In the advertising column of contempt
raneous publication we read the following
advertisement, with blanks substituted In
place OF names and numbers:
WANTED-A position by young gent
just graduated from High School In some
business office: COED references. Address,
Blank Blank, No. - Blank street.
In order that Its graduates may not strag.
gle but push, the High School, If like unto
the majority Of Its class, instructs students
In bookkeeping, arithmetic, rhetOricals,
drawing, literary German, business Ger
man, Latin, short hand, Greek, art, French,
mocular physics, chemistry, Shakespeare,
English literature, English and American
history, higher mathematics, natural
science, mental and moral philosophy and
choral music.
The High School diploma is not only
a guarantee that the graduate knows all
this, but that he has the training, moral as
we'll as mental, that hts him for life. Nat.
urally there ought to be keen competition
among business men to secure the services
of those who have been thus trained by
the state at great expense Of care and taxes,
and who have the states warrant of fitness
in the certificate of proficiency in the arts,
sciences, literatures and languages which
are held to insure fitness.
In the case we are considering, young
man who gives his full name and address,
80 that there can be no doubt that he Is
what he claims to be, is anxious to start in
life, and we wish him all possible success.
But he has started wrong. If the High
School has made "a gent" Of him-and
from what we know of its present theories
we do not we'll see how II could have failed
to do so-it has done him great injury
The world wants workers, the better edu.
Gated mentally, morally and socially, the
better. Good education, mental, moral and
social, makes the gentleman, who is in de-
mand everywhere; but there is little room
in the world for gents. A gent may have
certificate of proficiency In book. keeping,
Greek, short hand, mental and moral phil
OsOphy and all the rest of it, but no mer-
chant will have him for shipping clerk,
and no bank will employ him as a messen.
ger. We advise our young friend to rid
himself at once of whatever in his appear
ance, conversation or habit of thought
stamps him as "the young gent" he adver-
tises himself He may not appreciate the
importance of this advice now; he may
even be irritated by It; but when he has
ceased to be gent when he has put away
the feeling that makes gents, and by good,
plain, unassuming, honest work has won
the success he never could have won as a
gent, he will be willing to acknowledge
that it is to this article, and not to his di.
ploma as High School gent, that he owes
his success in life. As to the High School
system of the country, 1t is joined to its
crams-let it alone. The business public,
through Its ally, the press, has accomplish
ed much in reducing the load dumped up
on budding intellects in the minor grades,
but long ago gave up in despair all effort to
pound sufficient amount of common
sense into the superintendent of education
essential to shortening the courses of study
In the upper rooms. It's cram, cram, cram,
in the higher rooms of the public school,
until the pupil is crowded so full that he or
she emerges Jacks or Jennys of education
and master or mistress of none-Er.